Sunday, January 8, 2012

Axis! Successful hunt!

Story later. Really busy

EDIT- Full story:
This morning was the last hunt of a good weekend hunt. The main season is over, and we are in a special "extended season" for does and spike bucks. Since our lease is over-run with bucks, and I am out of buck tags, I was not really looking to shoot a doe. I wanted to get an Axis.

So I was out at the blind most of the morning, and saw one little doe walk through. I was getting some good reading done, and was about to pack it in when my brother texted from his blind (I know. Sign of the times) that he was going to shoot a corn-thief squirrel. I heard the shot, and thought "well, at least the hunt was not a waste."

I saw a similar corn-thief under my feeder, so I decided to lower the population by one more. So I brought up the iron sighted Ishapore Enfeild, lined up on the sucker, and scored a headshot on him from a laser measured 68 yards. Heck of a shot, I thought, and packed up all my stuff.

We drove out of the lease, and were almost gone when 45er's brother said, "Hey, there are Axis in the field." Looked out, and saw a herd of 10-12 axis does about 600 yards away.

I quickly re-camo myself, reload the rifle (NEF single shot .308 with Leupold 3-9x40) and take off. I work around the side of them, and get in close- like 40 yards. One of the little yearling does pins me down and stares right at me. I freeze, and they trot off. I slowly work through the brush, and get to the open. There was no more cover, and the herd was 200 yards away. All I had for a rest was a Stoney Point monopod. I made my decision, lined up on the biggest one I had a clean shot on, said a quick prayer, and fired.

The doe hit the ground, thrashed a bit, popped up before I could reload, and leapt the fence. After a short track, my brother found the doe 40 yards away.

If you follow 45er's blog, you may have seen this post from him a while ago:An Open Letter to Hunters
We have had 2 deer taken off our lease that had been wounded shortly before.

Now, we had three:

Yep, some jackass skipped a bullet off this deer's head in the last few days. Sigh.

Anyway, the wound and the deer were not infected, so the meat was still good.